Baby sleep superpower #1: milk = sleep

This page is part of a collection of short articles called Brief & simple, which together make up a quick summary of The Possums Sleep Program in plain language. For comprehensive information and support, please go to The essentials section of The Possums Sleep Program, and begin to work your way through the program's online text and videos.

You have two tools (which we can call your superpowers!) for making baby sleep as easy as possible.

1. Plenty of milk

2. Rich sensory stimulation

Superpower #1 for healthy sleep is plenty of milk in the tummy if your baby is under six months. After six months, solids will have a role to play as well. Sleep happens most easily in the first year of life if you offer frequent and flexible breast or bottle feeds, and feed your baby to sleep.

That's not to say your baby will always fall asleep with milk, but quite often they do, especially when very little.

Acknowledgements

I'm grateful to Professor Sophie Havighurst, Ros June, and Caroline Ma at Mindful, The University of Melbourne, for their feedback on the articles in the Brief & simple section of The Possums Sleep Program. They helped to keep the language plain and the concepts as accessible as possible. For comprehensive information and support, please go to The essentials section of The Possums Sleep Program, and begin to work your way through the program's online text and videos.

Recommended resources

Frequent flexible breastfeeds help make baby sleep easy

Breastfeeding your baby to sleep doesn't cause bad habits

Frequent flexible bottle feeds help make sleep easy if you're not direct breastfeeding (and baby is under five months of age)

Feeding your bottle fed baby to sleep doesn't cause bad habits

About paced bottle feeding

When is your baby ready for solids?